Story Time

“I Know What I Heard” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #119

Gregg says you can’t hear anything in a hurricane. That is not true. I can hear anything. I’m like my mother. My mother could hear a mouse dancing on a snowflake in the middle of a symphony. The women in my family have tremendous ears. The men die young, but the women live forever and hear everything. Once, at a New Year’s Eve party, I heard someone disparaging my perm all the way from across the room. This big living room with a hundred people in it, and as everyone was counting down to midnight, all I could hear was Viv Olson saying I ...

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“The Average Life of a Swan” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #118

I became a duckling the day being a swan became too strenuous. Calling out to whichever deity would listen, I begged to have my wings cut or shortened. I wanted the white that had inspired artists to paint me and great beauties to envy me cast off my plumage or given away to someone who could better care for its grace. The others I swam alongside were perplexed at my request. Why wish to return? Why loathe my current form? Why beg to rewind the fable of the swan? Because some of us miss our youth that much, I suppose. Some cannot loo...

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“Ivan Isn't Here, or Who Is Ivan?” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #117

Ivan was not in attendance at Dalia’s christening, because nobody knew who Ivan was or whether he had been, or if he could be. The beautiful christening dress was too small for Dalia, and that’s just the sort of thing her parents would have blamed on Ivan had Ivan been someone they were familiar with on the day their child was introduced to the Lord. Dalia’s mother, Reina, remembered a disturbance when she was just two months pregnant with what would one day be her golden child. She was fast asleep next to her husband, Vincent, when she ...

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“Straw, Sticks, and Brick” by Story Time

🏆 Winner of Contest #116

First and foremost, I just need to assert what was right and what was wrong. I think, before you can apologize for things you’ve done, you need to really isolate and evaluate exactly what you did wrong, and it’s very rare that you, uh, you know, haven’t done anything right in the midst of all you did wrong. So, I would like to assert that, yes, I made mistakes. I made many mistakes. I hurt people. Well, not people, but, you know, living things. I hurt living things and I hurt them by damaging their property and terrorizing them, and for that...

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“Eat the Cake” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #114

I always get sick the day before the talent show. Some think it’s the Ghost of What’s to Come, because you know you’ll be sick the next day. All over town, stomachs turn over and twist when February 8th is around the corner. Being the band-aid ripper that I am, I’m always the first to show up at town hall. Why prolong the inevitable? I put on my loosest jeans and my biggest sunglasses, and I report for duty. Crystal is waiting with the clipboard when I roll up to the folding table that gets trotted out once a year for this very purpose...

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“Cassandra Dreams of Brooklyn” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #113

When I told them the building would come to flames at half past three on a cloudy Saturday in November, they laughed at me. The men. The firemen. The red axe-holders ran their chuckles up and around my concern. Even the dalmatian laughed with a clipped bark that betrayed its tender spots. I took my lunch pail filled with the ham and lettuce my mother had packed me, and I walked the seven blocks home. When that Saturday in November arrived, the smoke could be seen from the playground at my school, and our teacher left us mid-sentence when t...

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“Good Thing You Stopped” by Story Time

Good thing you stopped. I could have been on this road all night. This road goes into Richmond. Richmond is all right, but after Richmond is Grafton, and Grafton is rough. Grafton is rough on Friday’s. Today isn’t a Friday, but if you ever find yourself driving on a Friday, I would take the road around Grafton. There are seventeen gas stations all in a row, and each one is worse than the last. Grafton is all gas stations and Olive Garden’s. There used to be a Ponderosa Steakhouse back when those existed, but now it’s just another Olive G...

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“As Much A Princess” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #107

I find that people are often looking for the essence of a thing more than the thing itself. Usually, whenever someone finds something or meets someone, and they feel--If they were to say they felt let down--I suspect it would be because they had an expectation of what that introduction or discovery would feel like and, for them, the feeling didn’t match up. It didn’t have the sensation a child gets when they put together their first puzzle. Everything falls neatly into place. The order that’s accomplished in a moment of personal satisfacti...

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“A Look Back at Home” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #106

Alice would wait until Friday to tell the kids. There was no point telling them on a Tuesday so that they could sulk about it all week. If she told them on Friday, and then told them they could have their friends sleep over, there was always a chance they’d forget about the whole thing in an instant the way pre-teens do in between crushes and rocket maintenance. Her optimism was dampened when Ari, her eleven-year-old, informed her in between bites of Moon Mounds at breakfast that he did not remember anything about their last trip. She balk...

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“After We're Done Talking About the Wicked Witch” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #105

Well, now that she’s gone, can we please get back to the matter at hand? I know that was a fun bit of excitement, but we were trying to have a meeting before that house landed. The next thing you know, we have a dead witch, and a girl from Kansas, and another witch, and now half the day is gone. More than half the day. Two thirds of the day is completely gone, and we still haven’t decided whether or not we’re going to build a new courthouse. Oh, I can hear you now. Millicent P. Freybopper, there are bigger things to worry about than a ...

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“Staying In” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #104

He had tried his hardest not to be invited anywhere. The bug bite on his arm still hadn’t healed from the barbecue at his brother’s house the previous Saturday, and it was all the proof he needed that outings in the summer were not for him. The temperature had been a crisp seventy-one degrees all day with a delightful, slightly intrusive wind making an appearance every so often. It was the ideal weather for a night on the town, and he knew as soon as he rolled out of bed that there would be exactly forty-six text messages requesting his pr...

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“When Wearing Black on a Thursday” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #103

At security, Jonathan remarks that she’s never worn black on a Thursday. Caroline almost doesn’t hear him. It’s not because he’s speaking softly, but because they’ve never conversed. Come to think of it, she can’t remember if she’s ever heard his voice until he commented on her outfit. It was just a black dress that she found in her closet with the price tag still on it. The number four hundred crossed off, then a blacked out three hundred, and the winning discount--One twenty-nine. Truthfully, Caroline still thought that was thirty doll...

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“Tuition” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #102

I know Marcella couldn’t pay the tuition this month, but we have every reason to believe she’s good for it. I know with Stephen, it was slightly difficult, because he was already a few months behind, and we were giving him a lot of leeway, and I know that was a controversial decision for the school board and the, uh, the people in charge of the decisions to, uh, make--I know that. But this isn’t that. Marcella is behind one month, but her mother recently got another job at the flea market helping to set up the various stands and she assigns ...

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“Today The Phone Won't Ring” by Story Time

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #101

Today the phone won’t ring. She checked as soon as she woke up. Dead breath in her mouth. The guy next to her--an aberration. He should have gone home. She made it explicitly clear to him that under no circumstances could he stay the night. He said he just wanted to rest his eyes while he waited for his Lyft. Now here he is. He’s upset the balance. She should beat him to death with the coffeepot, but that would only derail the morning further. Once he’s up and out (“I’ll call you when I’m back from Fiji. Big things going on there. Really...

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“Dracula in the Morning” by Story Time

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #99

My doctor told me that a lot of the whole “I burn up in the sun” fear that I have is, you know, just that. It’s a fear. A fear that’s rooted in trauma, because, you know, when the villagers would come, they would come with torches, and so now, I associate fire or fire-like things with destruction and harm. And, you know, if I only lived a natural life, then I would only see that fear grow to include, um, you know, obviously, fire, and, like, maybe matches? But when you’ve been around as long as I have it expands--the fear--it expands, ...

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